Mirror of the Times (Jayson Blair a sociopath?)

the Nation ^ | June 16, 2003 (posted may 29) | James W. Carey

[mountaineer]

With all the words laundered over the Jayson Blair affair, why is my soul still disquieted? Why do I feel even further from the truth than on the day the journalistic fraud was first revealed? The New York Times followed what has become, since Janet Cooke hoodwinked the Washington Post, the prescribed script of a ritual of atonement. The paper could simply have fired Blair, disclosed the fraud and issued an apology, treating his conduct for what it is--differing in degree, not in kind, from what is, alas, all too common in the hypercompetitive, Internet- and cable TV-driven atmosphere of big-city journalism. Instead, it ordered an internal investigation and turned the episode into a major news event, publishing a 14,000-word account of the plagiarism and fantastical invention carried out in its pages for three years.

While the Times has notoriously opposed many of the attempts at reform of mainstream journalism--ombudsmen, the National News Council, responsiveness to the concerns of readers that is the hallmark of public journalism--it was unusually forthcoming in revealing its own internal operations and conflicts: top management resisting evidence of Blair's fakery, ignoring protests from sources and subjects, and discounting warnings from its own reporters and editors.

"Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception" was less a news story than a trial in which the Times served as investigator, prosecutor, defense attorney, judge, jury and executioner. It was a show trial designed to expunge the record and memory of Jayson Blair, although "no articles are being removed" from the archives and "corrections and editors' notes have been appended to the fraudulent documents." In Blair's absence, the Times made a public confession on his behalf while seeking absolution from readers for its own sins, implicitly rendering the paper an unindicted co-conspirator. Like most show trials, the story attempted to showcase the central virtues of journalism, to shore up the boundary between fact and fiction, borrowing and stealing, and to restore the bond of trust between the paper and its readers.

The Times was too circumspect to label Blair a sociopath, but other publications presented a psychiatric work-up of the perpetrator to show that the problem was not in journalism but in Blair.

[mountaineer]

Related article:

Who's the exact opposite of Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter accused of inventing sources and quotes, plagiarizing and other sins? Well, how about Judith Miller? Where Blair is young and black and inexperienced, a rookie journalist whose job was largely to interview ordinary people, Miller is middle-aged and white and a veteranTimes star whose job it is to interact with the best and the brightest in science, academia and government.

But Blair and Miller have more in common than you might think. Both are in trouble for giving readers dubious information. While Miller's alleged improprieties are of a more subtle nature, and she comes into this rough patch with an estimable reputation built over the course of a long and distinguished career, her case reveals a great deal about the state of today's news media. What Miller did, and the fact that her brand of journalism is encouraged and rewarded by the powers that be, is precisely the kind of topic that the Times's leadership ought to air during its current semipublic glasnost phase.

In Blair's case, the only serious damage has been to the paper's image. Miller, on the other hand, risks playing with the kind of fire that starts or justifies wars, gets people killed and plays into the hands of government officials with partisan axes to grind.

Rest of article: Scoops and 'Truth' at the Times, The Nation, June 23, 2003 issue (posted June 5)

[BCrago66]

I can't remember another time when I've read an insightful article from The Nation.

[RJayneJ]

[boris]

Someone with a personality disorder manifesting itself chiefly in anti-social attitudes and behaviour. Hence socio"pathic a.; soci"opathy.

1930 G. E. Partridge in Amer. Jrnl. Psychiatry X. 55 A conspicuous number who may justly be termed ‘sociopathic’. Ibid., We may use the term ‘sociopathy’ to mean anything deviated or pathological in social relations. Ibid. 56 We may exclude from the class of essential sociopaths those whose inadequacy is primarily related to physical weakness, fear, hypersensitiveness, shyness and self-blame. 1940 Hinsie & Schatzky Psychiatric Dict. 493/1 Sociopathy, this term has generally been used to designate an abnormal or pathological mental attitude toward the environment. 1962 L. Yablonsky Violent Gang (1967) xii. 216 The violent-gang structure recruits its participants from the more sociopathic youths living in the disorganized-slum community. 1968 Listener 26 Sept. 408/1 In America ‘psychopathy’ has been replaced by ‘sociopathy’. 1976 Smythies & Corbett Psychiatry iii. 29 Many sociopaths come from appalling backgrounds or from genetically afflicted families.

The above is from the OED. Boris' definition is more succinct:

A sociopath (as opposed to a psychopath) is someone who views other people as objects to be manipulated, not as persons. A user.

Think of the Clintons; perfect case-studies.

--Boris

[buffyt]

Sounds like my ex-boyfriend. I had another word for him, too.... I refere to him as *sshole.

[Allan]

bump